jenny mccarthy wants your kid to get measles: autism, vaccines, and stupid idiots

huge upticks in food allergies and autism

huge upticks in _reported_ food allergies and autism

we used to just call those kids picky eaters or put them in the special ed class

Don't know if your kidding but pretty sure increase in food allergies isn't just increased reporting. Unclear w/ autism

Increase in food allergies is real. One hypothesis is that it's an unintended consequence similar to those who shield their kids from vaccines. All this hyper-cleanliness, all this avoiding this and that food for kids, lack of early exposure to potential allergens, may be coming back to haunt us.

partially kidding

the hygiene hypothesis is pretty well-regarded, but the majority of studies are by parent survey, asking if their child had a skin, food, or respiratory allergic reaction in the preceding year, not based on allergy testing by a doctor or by reporting from medical practices. same studies mention that people have a poor understanding of allergies versus food intolerance or other reactions.

even if there are a lot more allergic reactions to food happening, reports are highly correlated with economic well-being

basically take the number of people who self-diagnose themselves with gluten intolerance, throw in the fact a fair number of them don't know the difference between intolerances and allergies, and then multiply by 1.25 to compensate for the 2.5 child per couple average

:)

yah ppl don't really know what "allergies" are I often find. like, getting an upset stomach in response to certain meds isn't an allergy.

Yep, I know so many people whos self claimed "allergies" are "oh I cant eat eggs" and its more just "I dont like eggs". I compare this to my mate Ash who, if he so much as glances at a peanut or cashew, will be hospitalised with a closed throat. THATS an allergy.

Some grass makes me break out in welts. Thats an allergy, albeit a mild one. "Chilli gives me a headache" is more "eh I dont like spicy food and Im projecting". I went thru years of BS because a GP decided my vague tireness/poor health was due to "food intolerances" and I got made to cut all this BS out my diet - no amines, no MSG, no salicilates, no dairy. This meant 80% of all fruits and veg, ALL dairy and even some meats, were off the table.

All that did, was make me MORE sensitive to stomach upsets/headaches from eating too much tomato or chilli. Crock of crap. And cost me a lot of money.

A lot of improperly diagnosed food allergies seem like "I/my child is special and delicate"

kids do die from peanut allergies though

Only special delicate ones.

cool jokes about dead children

Wasn't there a recent study that women who ate nuts regularly during their pregnancy were fare less likely to bear children with nut allergies?

I was careful to note a difference between actual life threatening allergies, and hand wavy intolerances.

that's also why I said "improperly diagnosed" as a qualifier. I am aware of the relatively rare but very real and dangerous food allergies that do exist

I know so many kids with very real allergies, to peanuts, to cats, to strawberries. Reactions run from rashes to vomiting to hospital. When I was young, the only allergies anyone had were to bee stings, and no one talks about fucking bee stings anymore. Perhaps because there are so few bees?

I also know a couple of kids with real Celiac. Makes me hate the gluten-free fakers.

and there are soooooo many of those. I know maybe 3 actual celiacs, and about 12000 others who naturopaths told them not to eat wheat.

Wasn't there a recent study that women who ate nuts regularly during their pregnancy were fare less likely to bear children with nut allergies?

I thought it was the opposite, at least as far as peanuts were concerned.

Oh well. There's no way to ever find out.

iirc both theories have been posited, as well as theories about a cause being children not/eating peanuts too young

dunno if any of this has substantial evidence yet

What doesn't make sense to me is why there would be a significant uptick either in children not eating peanuts young enough or eating them too young.

With the uptick in autism, I sometimes wonder if it's related to the uptick in older parents.

Like, autism risk pretty clearly increases when the parents are older, and I think the number of older parents has also increased significantly, but I don't know if the increase in older parents is enough to account for the increase in autism.

Thats an angle I never pondered. I am guessing studies have been done. When I was kid I'm sure the general consensus was "try not to have your first child after 35 (or whatever later age)", because of all the risks of downs syndrome and similar.

Also, older parents seem to be common among the anti-vaccine demographic, but that's just my totally unscientific observation

xpost There was once a story about disproportionate autism among children of Microsoft employees (or something like that), many of whom might have been somewhere along the spectrum (as such) any way, but many of whom definitely partnered up late.

parents who seek nonmedical exemptions from vaccines are whiter and of higher SES but i don't recall any data that they're older. might be though

used to be caustic abt the gluten-free crowd but now i think there's something genuinely up w the wheat. meanwhile i have crohn's but bread is all i care about in the world :(

xp just checked and yes they're older too

I don't think I have enough knowledge to posit any real theories, just sarcastic posts responding to studies that seem really inconclusive

Regarding Josh's point, though, I think there are a lot of people with cat allergies regardless of age, if my mid-to-late 30s peer group is representative

Yeah animal allergies I'm ok with being a real Thing, Ive seen first hand a person walk into a room my cat was in, and within 10 mins become a snotty, red faced, wheezing, dribbly mess.

my dad is like that and I have a milder form of it

In addition to parents being older, I would also posit that perhaps the increased use of assisted reproductive technologies might have something to do with it.

sunspots

CONTRAILS OMG

Flouride

some ppl really do blame flouride actually :/

all these autistic kids with nice teeth and strong bones

xpost I mean, people with SERIOUS cat allergies, like bad enough to trigger asthma attacks (asthma being another thing that seems more prevalent). But I mostly just threw cat allergies in there. Peanuts, tree nuts, strawberries, mango, passion fruit (!) ... these are all things I'm seeing more often, especially the former. Oh, and Type 1 diabetes, which is a horrible thing that is also mysteriously on the rise, also oddly among certain ethnic/income lines, iirc.

In addition to parents being older, I would also posit that perhaps the increased use of assisted reproductive technologies might have something to do with it.

what's the rate of these ailments in countries/cultures that haven't seen avg age of parents increase or increased use of assisted reproductive technologies? (obv there'd be other variables to account for when comparing)

Asthma's been pretty strongly correlated to interior and exterior environmental pollutants (as are poverty levels), iirc.

asthma and some food allergies are things kids can grow out of, too. I guess 20% of kids with peanut allergies no longer have an allergy as adults?

I seem to remember a lot more kids in elementary school having inhalers than adults having them now.

xpost I seem to recall studies that showed, say, a disproportionate amount of asthma in places like Harlem vs. some super-polluted can't-see-the-sun places, though, so it's not just pollution/poverty but maybe the type?

Some amazing asthma figures here: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs206/en/

The scale of the problem

Between 100 and 150 million people around the globe -- roughly the equivalent of the population of the Russian Federation -- suffer from asthma and this number is rising. World-wide, deaths from this condition have reached over 180,000 annually.

Around 8% of the Swiss population suffers from asthma as against only 2% some 25-30 years ago.
In Germany, there are an estimated 4 million asthmatics.
In Western Europe as a whole, asthma has doubled in ten years, according to the UCB Institute of Allergy in Belgium.
In the United States, the number of asthmatics has leapt by over 60% since the early 1980s and deaths have doubled to 5,000 a year.
There are about 3 million asthmatics in Japan of whom 7% have severe and 30% have moderate asthma.
In Australia, one child in six under the age of 16 is affected.
Asthma is not just a public health problem for developed countries. In developing countries, however, the incidence of the disease varies greatly.

India has an estimated 15-20 million asthmatics.
In the Western Pacific Region of WHO, the incidence varies from over 50% among children in the Caroline Islands to virtually zero in Papua New Guinea.
In Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru and Uruguay, prevalence of asthma symptoms in children varies from 20% to 30%.
In Kenya, it approaches 20%.
In India, rough estimates indicate a prevalence of between 10% and 15% in 5-11 year old children.

Also xpost, some people do grow out of allergies, but I believe the only way to tell is ... to expose people to serious allergens every few years. Our friends who have a son with severe peanut allergies, I think every couple of years they go to the doctor, and the doctor basically exposes them to peanuts with an epi-pen at the ready.

damn that is a lot of asthma sufferers

In the Western Pacific Region of WHO, the incidence varies from over 50% among children in the Caroline Islands to virtually zero in Papua New Guinea.

Do Caroline Islands have more air pollution then PNG? If percentage of asthmatics is rising across the globe, that would point to global air pollution, no?

(obv there could be other causes)

I dunno, how bad can the air quality be in Switzerland?

well there's pollution in the Grand Canyon due to Los Angeles, so there's not many places that are free from it even if they are free of polluters in the immediate area

But Los Angeles pollution is much lighter than it was 30 and more years ago. Are there LA basin figures for asthma rates?

pollution is lighter but iirc dust-based air pollution is on the rise due to drained water basins inland

Does that affect the LA basin or the Eastern Cal (and points further East) areas? I didn't think that the Owens Valley problems affected us.